Member Profile: Barbara Illowsky, Ph.D.

Username: billowsky

Contact: illowskybarbara@deanza.edu

Affiliation: De Anza College

Preferred Language: English

Location: California

Interests: Mathematics, Statistics

Author of: 249 Modules and 3 Courses (view statistics)

Coauthors: Susan Dean

Biography:

Dr. Barbara Illowsky is a Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at De Anza College in Santa Clara County. She serves as the Project Director for the Basic Skills Initiative for the entire California Community College System. She is a member of the Executive Board of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges and has continuously served on the board of the California Mathematics Council, Community Colleges for over ten years and is currently the president-elect. She has been honored with numerous awards for her innovative work in mathematics education.

Dr. Illowsky earned her B.S., Phi Beta Kappa, in Mathematics at the State University of New York at Albany. She earned her A.M. in Statistics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and her PhD in Education, focusing on Instructional Design for Online Learning, at Capella University.

In 1989, Dr. Illowsky joined the mathematics faculty at De Anza College, where she has taught all levels of mathematics. She co-developed, with Susan Dean, one of the college’s first online learning courses, Elementary Statistics, which won the “Best Online Teaching Award” in 2002 from California Virtual Campus, a California Community College System consortium. They also co-authored Collaborative Statistics, an elementary statistics textbook with a collaborative learning and multicultural approach, now used by thousands of community college and high school students. She frequently speaks nationally on issues including online learning, collaborative learning, technology in mathematics education, basic skills education in community colleges, and open educational resources.